Can the Bible become an idol?

A friend asked me, “So what did you read in the Bible today?”
And I was stumped. I fumbled around with a lame answer and quickly changed the subject.

But later on, for the life of me, I could not recall what I had read that very morning!
True, I had been in a rush to get somewhere and hence had hurried over breakfast and God-time, but I could not remember exactly which passage I had been reading from.

Other than embarrasing me, that got me thinking.

I realised that my 'quiet' time had become a ritual, nothing more than a habit that I followed – like brushing my teeth every morning.

An unthinking routine.

My relationship with Jesus had come to a standstill. Like a stagnant pond, I was subsisting on the algae that had taken root over the years but there wasnt any fresh water, or revelation, evident in my life. I hadn't back-slidden as such, I'd just stalled. The Bible had become a replacement of the relationship I had shared with God.

But you see, to have a relationship, you need to communicate, to talk and to listen. Lately I had been talking at God and not waiting long enough to listen to what he had to say in return. As long as I met my reading quota for the day - one chapter from the Old Testament, one from the New, one Psalm and one from Proverbs - I was ok with the state of things.

Thankfully God wasn't. And as he often does, he sent a reminder in the form of that question.
I've realised that even a good thing, like the Bible, has the potential of becoming an idol*, when you replace God with it.